Namibian businesswomen inducted to Namibian Business Hall of Fame

Staff Reporter



The Namibia Business Hall of Fame (NBHF) has honoured emerging entrepreneurs this month.

Founder of Poiyah Media, Ilke Platt, was inducted as an emerging entrepreneur last month during the virtual event. She was awarded Africa’s World Woman Leader.

Managing director of Global Entrepreneurship Network and founder of NBHF, Johanna Cloete has been curating this ecosystem of entrepreneurs with criteria based on who has been making or made immense contributions to the Namibian economy during the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, curation is also based on who has achieved business excellence, upholds the values of entrepreneurship and leadership, reigning as a custodian of our community.

The Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) Namibia approached this year’s award with the following end goals:

· Increase the number of ordinary citizens in becoming serial entrepreneurs, thus improving the quality of life for them and the community at large.

· Expand understanding and relations between the new and traditional elements, which foster emerging start-up communities and ecosystems; inclusive of entrepreneurial designed public programmes. It takes a village where everyone - including the ‘tucked’ and ‘untucked’ shirts -collaborates to succeed.

· Support the emergence of a new class of global entrepreneurs with access to research, programmes and networks inside the 180-nation strong GEW network. National boundaries are porous to innovation and a new creative class of risk-takers is hard wired to a global network.

· Connect an emerging community of national start-up policy advisors with a next-generation network of world-class entrepreneurial research institutions. By doing so, we can generate more robust research and data to support evidence-based policy-making, and more effective entrepreneurial support programming.

· Allow competition to determine the champion entrepreneurs.

Well-known members of the Namibian community have been inducted as laureates and include the late Werner List, Dr Frans Indongo and First Lady Monica Geingos.

Upon receiving her award, Platt said: “There needs to be more emphasis on emotional and mental support for an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs often work in isolation, and the side effects, if not managed properly, can be devastating”.

She added that “this can easily result in the closure of business, slowing down of creativity, and a lack of passion. “Entrepreneurs should be guided towards a financially free environment. There's nothing more depressing than worrying about finances and losing your focus on providing a service to fill the gap. With these two aspects and also through more awareness around and mechanisms on how to cope mentally, a lot of entrepreneurs can easily avoid major pitfalls”.

All entrepreneurs inducted into the NBHF are recognised and encouraged to pursue in their various businesses despite many reasons to close their business. Events like these are a reminder that hard work pays off and that perseverance prevails above all. All winners for 2021 can be viewed on GEN Namibia social media platforms.